Open Access Toolkit

Open Access Mandates In Australia

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Australian Research Council (ARC) require all NHMRC / ARC funded research or partially funded research to be made publicly available in an Open Access institutional repository.

The intent of both the NHMRC and ARC policies is to maximise the benefit of the Australian Government's investment in research funding through the widest possible dissemination, discovery and access to research findings in the most effective manner and at the earliest opportunity.

Adherence to NHMRC and ARC Open Access policies is a requirement of the Funding Agreements of these agencies.

The NHMRC and ARC understand that the new requirements may not be able to be met in some cases due to current legal or contractual obligations.

However, if an Open Access version of the published output cannot be made Open Access the researcher must say so in the Grant Final Report.

Both the ARC & NHMRC have indicated that in the future they may begin looking at researcher's compliance with this mandate when assessing future grant applications.

Policy Compliance Tree

This policy compliance decision tree was developed by the Australian Open Access Support Group

Repository Deposit Procedure For Both NHMRC And ARC Funded Research

The publication should be deposited in the UC Research Repository as soon as possible after the publication has been accepted. Repository staff check and apply publisher embargo periods for you.

The Accepted Version may be deposited. The Accepted Version is the final corrected version after peer review. The publisher's copyright agreement should state the version that you can deposit in an Institutional Repository. SHERPA/RoMEO summarises the policies of international publishers and OAKList summarises policies of Australian journals.

ARC & NHMRC Funding Mandate discussion At ANU 2013 (video)

NHMRC Funding Mandate

Journal articles accepted for publication after 1 July 2012 must be deposited into an Open Access institutional repository within 12 months of the date of publication.

Who is responsible for ensuring compliance?

The Chief Investigator A (CIA) is responsible for depositing a compliant version of publications (noting any embargo period) in their institutional repository.

What about Copyright?

There may be legal or contractual reasons that limit complying with the mandate. The ARC is aware that initial compliance may be affected by pre-existing publishing agreements and the policies provide advice in this case.

UC Research Repository staff check that records in the UC Research Repository comply with publishers' requirements for providing open access to either published or manuscript document versions.

ARC Funding Mandate

Which publications need to be open Access?

Any publications arising from grants funded since 1 January 2013 must be deposited into an Open Access institutional repository within 12 months of the date of publication.

Who is responsible for ensuring compliance?

The Chief Investigator A (CIA) is responsible for depositing a compliant version of publications (noting any embargo period) in their institutional repository.

What about Copyright?

There may be legal or contractual reasons that limit complying with the mandate. The NHMRC is aware that initial compliance may be affected by pre-existing publishing agreements and the policies provide advice in this case.

UC Research Repository staff check that records in the UC Research Repository comply with publishers' requirements for providing open access to either published or manuscript document versions.

Overseas Funders Policies

A growing number of funding agencies and organizations are requiring that grant recipients make the results of their work open for public access. Here are a couple of examples of funders with these mandates. A more complete list can be found on the Sherpa Juliet site.

NIH requires those receiving NIH funds to deposit their final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts in the PubMed Central digital archive upon acceptance for publication. The Policy further requires that these papers be made accessible to the public in PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication. Many publishers facilitate compliance.

The Wellcome Trust requires that funded research work accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal be made available through PubMed Central (PMC) and UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) within six months of the journal publisher's official date of final publication. The Trust will cover author fees, where required by the journal for compliance.